Car workers meet over jobs threat

Workers at two car component factories facing closure are meeting to draw up counter plans aimed at saving jobs.

Officials from Unite said they would fight plans by engineering giant GKN to close two sites in Birmingham and Walsall, with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

Workplace representatives will hold an emergency meeting with senior union officials to finalise proposals they expect to be considered by the company.

GKN has announced that its forge facility at Hamstead near Birmingham will close by the end of the year and its car parts facility in Walsall will close by the middle of 2010, with the loss of 323 jobs. Other jobs will go across other parts of the company.

Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, said: "The workers have vowed to fight these closures and Unite will be doing everything in its power to support them.

"We believe there are genuine alternatives to the number of job cuts the company is currently proposing. We expect GKN to give the union's plans serious consideration.

"Unite is urging the Government to learn the lessons of past failures to support manufacturing and begin a programme of emergency support for strategic industries of which car production is most certainly one.

"We are calling for a £13 billion fund to be made available to provide interim relief for producers and to cover employment costs during the crisis period.

"We need a strategic support package from Government, similar to the support provided by the German, French and Swedish governments to their manufacturing sector. We can't afford to let a short-term problem deprive Britain of the skills we will depend on to compete in the world economy in the long term."

Union officials claimed that workers in the UK were bearing the brunt of the European job cuts because UK workers are cheaper and easier to sack than workers from other countries in Europe.